Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

The Masjid-i-Shah
In the spring of 161! Shah Abbas I began his new congregational mosque under the direction of the architect Ustad (Master) Abu’l Qasim. The latter is said to have absented himself for two years when the walls were about to receive the vaults to allow the building to settle into its foundations. This occurred during the lifetime of Shah Abbas, but the mosque seems not to have been entirely completed until 1638.
The portal on the Meidan - completed, according to its inscription, in 1616 - faces north and is usually in shadow, but since it is entirely encrusted in brilliant tile mosaic it gleams with a predominantly blue light of remarkable intensity. It is deeply recessed to allow free passage beyond effect the necessary reorientation toward the southwest.
The plan, as Arthur Upham Pope has said, culminates nearly a thousand years of evolution of the four iwan mosque, the immediate predecessor being that of Gawhar Shad at Mashad. In the refinement of the relationships of it truly enormous parts (the outer portal alone is 90 feet tall), the Masjid-i-Shah far surpasses its model. No doubt the congregation in the summer gathered more often in the spacious sahn, where the covered chambers are expressed by single high arches breaking the rhythm of the two-story riuaqs; the prayer hall facade thus repeats the tripartite motif Islam seems to have inherited from the Roman via the Sassanian. Left and right of the closed halls are open garden courts with pools and fountains surrounded by one-story arcades. They probably served for religious instruction, but could hardly have been true colleges since there is no provision for students quarters.
The relatixely brief period in which Safavid architecture flourished contributed little what was new to Persian Islamic architecture, but it is of importance for two reasons. At this time the mosque and the four iwan mosque achieved their final refinement, after which no new ideas appeared and a decline in the execution of the old soon became apparent. Secondly, only from this period do palace pavilions such as the AM Kapu, the Chehel Situn, and the Hasht Behisht survive in fair condition. Used with circumspection, these afford a valuable insight into the vanished splendours of Timurid. II Khanid, and even perhaps Seljuke palaces and gardens, of \\hich only imperfect descriptions remain.3
’ Ahmad Hnati. Persian Aicnnecture. P 50